James Bond's unfinished mission
In a provincial nest in southern Sweden is the only permanent 007 museum
in the world. The reason for his existence is as curious as it is
touching.

His name is Bond, James Bond. So you know him when he crosses the city
in his open sports car and then drives up in a tuxedo at the casino. And
that's how he imagines when he receives the visitor.

But people of his stroke, you know, sometimes have more than one
identity. It's the same with him too. His full name is Nils Gunnar Bond
James Schäfer. His city: Kalmar, a southern Swedish provincial nest on
the Baltic Sea. His mission: The operation of the world's only
stationary museum devoted to nothing and nothing more than 007, Her
Majesty's agent.

A "real" James Bond
In fact, Gunnar Schäfer also leads the name James Bond. Since 2007, he
is registered in the register of the Swedish population control. He is
not even the only one in Sweden; Search engines such as Hitta.se report
four individuals with this name. In Sweden, this is relatively easy,
because every person is identifiable anyway due to their social security
number, even after any name change. Of course, choosing the year for
this step was not a coincidence, and neither is it that both his phone
number and mobile phone number end at 007. It goes without saying that
he owns an Aston Martin with the Swedish registration number 007 JB.

On an industrial estate in Nybro, the neighboring village of Kalmar,
Gunnar Schäfer has created a curious realm - and we will continue with
his original name. It is, he says, the world's only permanent exhibition
of James Bond memorabilia known to him. His latest piece: an original
Venetian gondola, as used in the movie "Moonraker". And lots of cars,
from the toy format to the original BMW Z3 from "Golden Eye," a light
aircraft, Bond's snowmobile from the film "Die Another Day," and the
Glastron speedboat from "Live and Let Die," to name just a few of the
showpieces call. Soon a hovercraft is to be added; He is already in
negotiations with the British owner of a hovercraft museum who wants to
disband his collection. "People know each other in the circle of special
museums," says Schäfer. "Otherwise you hardly get to such pieces."

Schäfer bought the area years ago for his company, which deals in car
parts. But where does his Bond enthusiasm come from? His older brother
had taken him as a seven-year-old to the cinema to "Goldfinger", and
that has aroused his interest, he says.

Replacement father Fleming
The truth is a bit more involved. Behind his passion lies the fate of a
man who is still searching for his father.

This, named Johannes Schäfer and from the Bavarian town of Sulzbach-Rosenberg,
was a German marine during the Second World War. At the end of the war
Schäfer was stationed in Denmark. He feared for his life and fled to
Sweden, swimming in the icy Öresund. In Sweden, he married and built a
new life. Gunnar is his youngest son.

Then, in 1959, Schäfer senior went to Germany to visit his mother. And
disappeared without a trace. Was he killed? Had he not only been a
soldier but also a spy and now lived under a new identity? Gunnar
Schäfer does not know it yet. In 1969, his father was officially
declared dead.

In the Bond author Ian Fleming the boy found an imaginary father figure
- not least because of striking similarities in the CV: Fleming had a
vintage similar to his father and served during the war also in the
Navy, albeit on the other side. From Fleming's stories, Gunnar had a
vision of what his own father's life might have looked like. He really
had not known this; he was two years old when Johannes Schäfer
disappeared. He has not left more than a common photograph.

To this day, Gunnar Schäfer, with the help of Ian Fleming and his
imaginary hero James Bond, tries to fathom his own past and find its
roots. "Somehow I feel like James Bond in the movie 'Skyfall' when he
returns to the family estate," says Schäfer. "It's an unfinished mission
for both of us."